I'm in the process of renewing my passport, and still cannot believe this. How is it that Dick Smith (local electronic chain store) has my address and telephone number and knows that I bought a TV cable from them back in 1997, and yet the Federal Government is still asking me where I was born and on what date?

For Christ sakes, do you guys do this by hand?

You have my birth date on my tax file number, and it is on all the income tax forms I've filed for the past 30 years. It's on my health insurance card, my driver's license, on the last eight bloody passports I've had, on all those stupid customs declaration forms I've had to fill out before being allowed off the planes over the last 30 years, and all those insufferable census forms that are done at election times.

Would somebody please take note, once and for all, that my mother's name is Maryanne and my father's name is Robert, and I'd be absolutely astounded if that ever changed between now and when I die!!!!!!!!!!!!

SH*T !!

I apologize, Mr Minister. I'm really p*ssed off this morning. Between you and me, I've had enough of this bullsh*t! You mail the application to my house, then you ask me for my f ****n' address. What is going on? Do you have a gang of Neanderthal a**holes workin' there? Look at my damn picture. Do I look like Bin Laden? I don't want to dig up Yasser Arafat, for sh*ts sake. I just want to go and park my ass on a sandy beach.

And would someone please tell me, why would you give a sh*t whether I plan on visiting a farm in the next 15 days? If I ever got the urge to do something weird to a chicken or a goat, believe you me, I'd sure as hell not want to tell anyone!

Well, I have to go now, 'cause I have to go to the other end of the city and get another f ****n' copy of my birth certificate, to the tune of $60! Would it be so complicated to have all the services in the same spot to assist in the issuance of a new passport on the same day? But nooooo ..... that'd be too damned easy and maybe make sense. You'd rather have us running all over the f ****n' place like chickens with our heads cut off, to find some a**hole to confirm that it's really me on the goddamn picture -- you know, the picture that we're not allowed to smile in?! F ****n' morons!

Hey, you know why we can't smile? 'Cause we're totally p*ssed off!

Signed - An Irate F ****n' Australian Citizen.

P.S.I have served in the military for something over 30 years and have had security clearances up the yingyang. I was aide de camp to the Lieutenant Governor of our State for ten years, and I have been doing volunteer work for the CMF (aka Citizen’s Military Forces – Australian equivalent of the US National Guard and the UK Territorial Army) for about five years. However, I have to get someone 'important' to verify who I am -- you know, someone like my doctor WHO WAS BORN AND RAISED IN COMMUNIST F*****N' CHINA!!!